Public schools are still outlawing bracelets worn to increase awareness of breast cancer in spite of a key federal court ruling last year upholding the rights of students to wear them. -db From a commentary for the First Amendment Center, May 24, 2012, by David L. Hudson Jr. Full story
School administrators were right to bounce a Tennessee high school student from her prom for wearing a dress resembling a Confederate flag, argues Ken Paulson for the First Amendment Center. Paulson said the school administrators were acting on the reality that the Confederate flag is divisive and could easily lead to disruption at the prom. -db From a commentary for the First Amendment Center, April 25, 2012, by Ken Paulson. Full story
After lengthy deliberations a Nebraska jury ruled that the Millard County School District had legitimate safety concerns in suspending two students for wearing bracelets and T-shirts commemorating a friend shot in gang-related incident. -db From the Student Press Law Center, April 13, 2012, by Emily Summars. Full story
Despite split rulings in two federal appellate courts, the U.S. Supreme Court will not hear arguments on whether school officials can regulate the off-campus speech of students on the Internet. Two of the three cases under consideration concerned parodies directed at principals while the third involved cruel words directed at another student. -db From the Student Press Law Center, January 17, 2012, by Brian Schraum. Full story
A First Amendment scholar criticizes a federal court ruling the wearing of American flag T-shirts were disruptive and exempt from First Amendment protections. David L. Hudson Jr. argues that the court was wrong in applying the “heckler’s veto” concept to the case that if the listeners to speech create a disturbance and silence a speaker, it constitutes disruption and allows the government to regulate the speech. -db From a commentary for First Amendment Center, November